The Logistics City Chair is dedicated to research on urban logistics, with a focus on two scientific axes:

THEME 1. Urban logistics real estate, new economic models for metropolitan logistics real estate, strategies for the implementation of logistics buildings in large metropolises. Objectives:

• Logistics sprawl and urban logistics: analysis of territorial dynamics linked to the evolution of the location of logistics activities, at the « macro » level
• Urban logistics planning: analysis of public policies, the history of the production of the first buildings, the economic paradox of urban logistics and regulatory obstacles, at the « micro » level

RESEARCH RESULTS:

• Presentation: Analysis of logistics sprawl in more than seventy cities around the world
• Report: Study on intermediate logistics real estate in the inner suburbs (« la petite couronne »), the case of the Est Ensemble territory, by students of the M1 of the École d’Urbanisme de Paris (in French)
• Dissertation: Study of the logistical dimension of the local urban plan (PLU) of Paris, by Damien Zachert (in French)

THEME 2. Trends and new practices in consumption, production and distribution impacting on urban logistics and warehousing of the future, in a prospective vision. Objectives:

• On the one hand, the collection of data and indicators for several major cities (including Paris) relating to the flows generated by new forms of e-commerce
• On the other hand, the analysis of their potential impacts, in particular through interviews with and observations of e-commerce and logistics players in case studies

RESEARCH RESULTS:

• Dissertation and overview of initiatives on autonomous vehicles for urban deliveries, by Sabrina Touami (in French)
• Article on autonomous vehicles for urban deliveries, by Heleen Buldeo Rai, Sabrina Touami and Laetitia Dablanc

Barometer of urban logistics in lockdown

The Logistics City chair has launched, with the support of the City of Paris, an initiative to increase knowledge and awareness of the situation of the urban logistics sector in times of lockdown:

• Barometer #1: March 26 – April 3, 2020
• Barometer #2: April 3 – 10, 2020
• Barometer #3: April 10 – 17, 2020
• Barometer #4: April 17 – 24, 2020
• Barometer #5: April 24 – May 1st, 2020
• Barometer #6: May 1st – 8, 2020

Surveys on instant delivery micro-entrepreneurs in Paris

• Report: the first (2016) and second (2018) round of surveys (in French)
• Report: the third (2019-2020) round of surveys (in French)

Training courses of the Logistics City Chair

The Chair supports student workshops in several university programs, for more information please contact: Laetitia Dablanc (laetitia.dablanc@univ-eiffel.fr).

Scientific communication, dissemination of knowledge and valorisation 

Dissemination of knowledge and valorisation

The description of the field of study and the scientific program of the Chair were the subject of a white paper on new urban logistics entitled « Welcome to Logistics City », available here.

Discover the results of the third survey of instant delivery micro-entrepreneurs in Paris

The report, accessible via this link (in French), aims to present the exhaustive results collected during the survey that was carried out by the Gustave Eiffel University/IFSTTAR with the help of the 6T research office in December 2019/January 2020 on a sample of 300 « instant delivery » workers in Eastern Paris. This survey, financed by DGITM, Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition and the Logistics City Chair, is the third on the subject.

Antwerp Summer School on Urban Logistics (17 – 21 August 2020)

Academic circles as well as governments have only grown the focus on urban logistics in recent years. This is because, on the one hand, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and they account for 70% of total GDP worldwide (UN, 2017). On the other hand, the urban logistics that brings the goods to these consumers and economic activities causes 20-30% of the total number of kilometers driven and 16-50% of the emissions in these areas (Dablanc, 2007). Therefore, planning and managing the urban transport is key for a sustainable development of cities. These form the topic of the second Urban Logistics Summer School. For more information, visit the summer school’s website.

Webinar « Complete Streets: Finding Space for Freight »

During this time of enormous growth in on-demand e-commerce, freight travel behavior patterns are distinct and rapidly evolving, generating unique demands for on- and even off-street space. Long term, as cities around the world adopt a “complete streets” approach, freight must be considered. By redesigning streets to allocate street and curbside space for transit and non-motorized travel, these cities are establishing how best to maintain a safe and efficient movement of goods while keeping pedestrians and cyclists safe. During the webinar which is accessible via this link, Alison Conway reviews challenges identified in a survey of cities around the U.S. and discusses international best practices to approach design, regulations, operations, and demand management for freight.

Find many research results in urban freight in Paris, Los Angeles, New York and Seoul: the Metrofreight center

MetroFreight (MF) is a consortium led by the METRANS Transportation Center and housed at the University of Southern California that whose main mission is to develop innovative strategies to manage urban freight and its impacts that are transferable to metropolitan areas around the world. The MetroFreight team is multidisciplinary, with particular strength in planning and public policy. French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFFSTAR) at Gustave Eiffel University is one of the consortium members since 2013. For further details please visit: https://www.metrans.org/metrofreight

Reports from the Transportation Research Board

The annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting took place in Washington, D.C. from January 12^th until January 16^th. The program attracted more than 13.000 transportation professionals from around the world, covering all transportation modes and addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers and representatives of government, industry and academic institutions. A report of the “Freight Day” session on “Sustainable and Efficient Solutions for Last Mile Distribution”, organized by Bilge Atasoy and Laetitia Dablanc can be found here. Attached as well are Laetitia Dablanc’s presentations on on-demand instant delivery services and recent trends in last mile logistics solutions around the world.

Photography exhibition « On n’est pas des robots », on workers in logistics

This exhibition presents the photography work that Cécile Cuny, Nathalie Mohadjer and Hortense Soichet realised within a collective research project on “the world of workers in logistics”. The exhibition takes place in Maison Robert Doisneau in Gentilly as from February 21^st until April 19^th 2020 (vernissage February 20^th as from 18:00). Entry is free of charge. The photographs on display in this exhibition are based on a three-year study bringing together photography and sociology, as part of a contract between the urban planning laboratory of the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée and photography artists.

The Chair also interacts with the international scientific community at ITS World Congress 2019 in Singapore: 

• The report of the visit to the Singapore Post Regional Logistics Centre (SingPost) is available here.
• Roundtable report on urban logistics is available  here.

Laetitia Dablanc’s speech at the annual meeting of logistics experts from Berlin and Brandenburg on the theme of rail and urban logistics, 21 November 2019. The presentation is available here.

A Film on Deliveries in New York City

“City Tour. The Everyday Life of Delivery Workers in New York City”, 2019 (1h32) by Sandrine Wenglenski, assistant professor at Université Paris-Est Marne-La-Vallée.

In New York City, deliveries to commercial properties and home deliveries are booming and generate an unprecedented context. The film aims to present the concrete terms and conditions of the delivery work, the ordinary tasks, and the practical organization of this daily performance, throughout four portraits of today’s delivery workers in the dense area of New York.

Project funded by University of Paris-East (Research Unit “City, Mobility, Transport”, LVMT) and Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (MetroFreight Paris).

Available online upon request to sandrine.wenglenski@u-pem.fr